


Not Again

by Doteruna



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Amputation, Dad Kolivan, Explosions, Gen, Healing pods, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, Kolivan is like a father, Mission Fic, Missions Gone Wrong, Poor Keith, Prosthesis, Protective Kolivan, dads of marmora
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-14
Updated: 2018-06-14
Packaged: 2019-05-23 06:17:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14928782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doteruna/pseuds/Doteruna
Summary: Of course, the mission had to go wrong. Keith is seriously injured. Kolivan doesn't know how he'll cope if he loses his kit.





	1. Chapter 1

Shiro’s mother had always told him, “If you keep making that face, it’ll get stuck like that forever.” It seemed as if Kolivan, leader of the Blade of Marmora, had the opposite problem--his face must have frozen into the expressionless mask it always was because he never changed it. Nothing made the Galra’s face move more than a curl of his lip or, on a great day, a skeptical eyebrow-raise. The man simply didn’t let his emotions show. 

Keith, on the other hand, was almost too expressive. He tried to hide it, and he was gruff and awkward, but his surprise or happiness was always easy to detect, especially for Shiro who had known the smaller boy for years. But Shiro had barely seen either of the Blades in the recent months; one of their undercover operatives had been able to reveal a new shipping route, so the Blades were kept busy sabotaging and stealing supplies and information as well as their normal infiltration and scouting missions. 

Fortunately, the next Galra Empire supply ship was travelling not far from where the Castle Ship was, so a small group of Blades had temporarily docked with Voltron to prepare and execute the mission. Keith, Kolivan, a newer recruit named Niala and Shiro (who had volunteered) were going to fly to the ship, sneak on board, download some information about new supply routes, and steal a few crates of supplies if they could before leaving, hopefully without a trace. 

Now, Shiro was expertly docking their small vessel on the underside of the Galra ship, where an out of date shipping corridor was. It should lead them right to the shipping hangar where supplies was kept, and from there two members of the team would make their way to an info terminal to download the routes while the other half loaded some crates onto the ship. 

“Niala, you and I will retrieve the information while the Black Paladin and Keith determine which supply crates to take,” Kolivan instructs as their ship docks and the door slides open, revealing a dark hallway. Shiro nods, but Niala, who doesn’t have her mask on yet, looks put out before she also nods. “Is something the matter?”

“No, sir,” Niala replied, but after Kolivan’s spit-it-out stare, she blurted, “I was hoping I could assist the Black Paladin, sir?” 

Today must have been a great day because Kolivan allowed one brow to raise slightly before he nodded. 

“Kit, you’re with me,” he said as Keith hopped into the hallway. “Paladin, I trust your judgement on which crates will benefit the Coalition the best. Still, remember that the Blade can always use more medical supplies.”

“Of course,” Shiro answered as he and the blushing Niala take a turn into the shipping hangar while Keith follows Kolivan further down the hallway, masks materializing as they reach the still-in-use part of the ship. 

“We should be looking for a control or security room if possible, but since those are likely to be guarded, a simply doorway terminal will have to do,” Kolivan says quietly as they steal down the hallways, dodging sentries and groups of Galra as they go. For someone so large, Kolivan moves completely silently, and when he does this cool flip-twist-jump thing and leaps straight over a security camera, Keith realizes again just how cool his almost-father-figure is. He imitates the move and before long they come across a door labeled “Guard Break Room” but there’s a smaller sign directly underneath reading “Damaged--Disregard”. 

“There should be a terminal inside,” Keith assumes, and when Kolivan nods, he tries the handle. It’s unlocked, and there is a terminal at a desk inside, but there’s also boxes of spare parts, old computer monitors, and several boxes clearly marked ‘Explosives’. 

“Fools,” Kolivan mutters, and Keith agrees. Keeping explosives and weapons in a spare room was incredibly stupid, but hey, Keith wasn’t complaining; the stupider the Galra running these ships were, the easier it was for the Blade of Marmora to take advantage of them. Keith ducks behind the desk to reconnect the old terminal to a power socket, and when it boots up he plugs in the small USB-type stick that Pidge designed for him. It automatically begins to scan the terminal and copy files that Pidge had pre-programmed to be considered useful, so all the Blades had to do was wait for the stick to finish downloading copies and then make their way back to their ship. 

The little red light on the end of the info stick turns green, and Keith yanks it out and pockets it as Kolivan goes to open the door. Just as his claws touch the controls, he freezes, then flattens himself against the wall. Keith immediately does the same just as the door slides open, flooding the section in front of the door with light. 

“Break Room Four is clear--hold on, what’s that?” the Galra guard, clearly making his rounds, hesitates. “Lieutenant, there are footprints in the dust inside. Has this room been put back into rotation?” He’s silent for a second, listening to the answer over his comms, and if he takes just one step into the room he’d see Keith and Kolivan on either side of him, pressed against the walls. “Yessir. I’ll wait here for backup.”

The Blades don’t have that time to spare, and Kolivan makes eye contact with Keith and nods. The smaller Blade whips around, one hand catching the guard’s gun while his leg sweeps the guard’s out from under him. As he falls, Kolivan reaches out and conks him on the helmet, and he’s out like a light. 

“Paladin, Niala, we’ve been discovered. Get back to the ship immediately, we’re on our way,” he growls over the comms as he steps over the guard’s body. Keith follows, and he’s barely past the doorway when there’s a shout from another guard and the sound of a laser firing.

The explosives go off violently, throwing Kolivan off his feet and several meters into the hallway. A wall of fire is right behind him, singeing the edges of his hood and blasting away the unarmored sentry that had fired the shot into the crates. Kolivan’s Blade uniform keeps anything else from catching fire as the sound of creaking metal echoes around him, and he pushes himself to his feet just in time to see the doorway, or what was left of it, collapse on top of Keith, who was already on the ground. 

There’s a pained scream that cuts off suddenly, and Kolivan can barely breathe through the smoke and his mask as he jumps forward. Crouching down, he pulls away a large piece of metal to reveal Keith, one leg pinned under a slab of steel and a long piece of shrapnel rising out of his chest, straight through the armor. There are holes in his suit from the fire, and a large portion of his shoulder and upper arm are a burned, bloody mass.

“Kolivan? Kolivan, can you hear me?”

Shiro’s voice comes crackling through the comms, distorted and tinny but there. 

“Explosion,” Kolivan grits out as he carefully hooks his claws under the huge piece of metal covering Keith’s right leg. “Keith is hurt. I’m bringing him to the ship.” Whatever Shiro says in reply goes unheard because all of Kolivan’s focus goes to lifting the metal. With an animalistic roar, he heaves the huge slab up and off of Keith, sending it crashing to the side.

As the slab moved off the limb, Keith regained consciousness, and Kolivan listened as his kit wailed in agony. He was breathing wildly, much too fast, and blood was pouring from the wound in his chest as well as his crushed leg. 

“Keith, I have to lift you,” Kolivan said as he crouched down, ignoring the ache in his back from being slammed into the ground. He pressed the button to release Keith’s mask as he did the same to his own. “Hold still, kit, hold still--”

He lifted Keith, one large hand behind his knees and his neck, and Keith screamed again as he was moved, tears spilling down his cheeks. Then he choked, and blood began to run down his chin as he coughed. The shrapnel had pierced his lung.

Kolivan straightened, cradling Keith in his arm, and began to run back down the hallway towards their ship. He completely ignored the groups of Galra he passed, darting past them before they could even react as Keith bled out in his arms. Within moments, he could see the ship ahead of him, the door open and Shiro already priming the engines to take off. 

Shiro turned as he heard the shouting of guards, only to see Kolivan flying towards them, Keith a tiny bloody figure clutched in his grasp. Niala slammed the door shut as soon as they cleared the frame, and then they were off, blasting away from the supply ship and towards the Castle Ship as fast as the engines could go. 

Niala swore in Galran as Kolivan gently lowered Keith to the floor, snatching the first aid kit from it’s spot on the wall. Blood was soaking the ground as Kolivan yanked off his belt, wrapping it firmly around Keith’s upper thigh, just above where the leg became crushed. He spared a glance up to see Keith staring at him, eyes wide in fear and pain, before he began to tighten the belt into a tourniquet. 

“Nonono Kolivan please no--” Keith’s pleas cut off into a shriek of pain as the leader of the Blades pulled the belt as tight as possible, cutting off blood flow. The spurting of blood slowed to a trickle with every twist, and Niala held one of Keith’s hands as he screamed. Then he coughed again, blood spraying onto Kolivan’s chest, and fell limp.

“Keith?!” came Shiro’s panicked cry from the cockpit. The ship jerked as they passed through a wormhole, and then the Castle Ship was right in front of them, hangar doors opening as they sped closer. 

“He’s breathing,” Kolivan said shakily as Shiro joined him on the floor, Niala taking over the landing procedures. Shiro had never seen such an expression on the Galra’s face; true fear. “He’s breathing but barely. We need to remove this shrapnel, but he will bleed out in minutes once we do. We need to get him to a healing pod.”

Distantly, Kolivan heard Niala repeating his orders through the ship’s comms to Allura, but he was quickly becoming deaf and blind to everything around him except for Keith’s broken body. The boy’s face was deathly pale and smeared with blood and tears, and his eyes were barely open--just enough that Kolivan could meet his gaze and see the pain in those violet eyes. His breathing was quick and shallow, getting more and more labored by the second. 

The ship’s door opened, and Keith whimpered as Kolivan lifted him again. He pushed straight past the waiting Paladins and followed Allura, who practically ran to the room where Coran was preparing the healing pod. He could feel Keith’s breathing slowing down with every stride he took, but he would not let his kit die. Not again.

“Cut his suit off, it’ll only interfere with the pod,” Coran instructed as they reached the room. Shiro was suddenly there with a blade, slicing cleanly down the back of the Marmora outfit and peeling it away, ignoring how some of it stayed ground into the burned mess of Keith’s left shoulder and ripping it at his hip so he didn’t jostle the tourniquet. 

“I’m removing the shrapnel now,” Coran said, his usually cheerful voice void of it’s usual joy. Kolivan nodded, and Coran carefully gripped the protruding end of the metal spike while bracing his other hand on Keith’s chest. With a solid, fluid movement, he pulled the metal out. Immediately, Keith gasped in pain, but it was a breathless, wet sound that Kolivan wished to never hear again in his life. Blood began to pour from the wound, and Kolivan had to bite his lip viciously to keep from whining as he deposited Keith into the pod, the glass door sealing shut with a hiss. Coran pressed several buttons, and then took a step back.

Nobody moved.

The other Paladins had followed him into the room, and Allura was leaning heavily against Lance. Niala was standing by the entrance of the room, and Kolivan was frozen in front of the pod. After a solid minute of silence, Kolivan turned. 

“What supplies were you able to retrieve?” he asked suddenly as he bent down to pick up Keith’s ruined uniform. He pulled out the info stick and handed it to Pidge, who took it in shaking fingers. There was blood on it. 

“Two boxes of medication, one of medical supplies, one of weaponry, and three of raw clothing materials and foodstuffs,” Shiro replied faintly, looking pale. Kolivan nodded. 

“Niala. Contact the base and inform them of this incident. Green Paladin, once the information on that drive is decoded, please give a copy to Niala for her to send off.” Pidge disappeared to get started, and Hunk followed her, likely to comfort her. 

“Shiro, let’s get those crates unpacked and see exactly what you retrieved,” Allura said, trying to compose herself. Lance trailed behind her like a puppy, casting one last glance at the pod before exiting. Niala followed them, leaving just Coran and Kolivan in the room. 

“How…” Kolivan began, but Coran cut him off. 

“It’s bad,” he murmured. “I’m no expert in human medicine, but from the numerous physicals and information from the Paladins, it’s likely that Keith will lose the leg. The pod will focus on life-threatening injuries first, and that means the chest wound since the bleeding in his leg was stopped. His shoulder and arm...I’m not sure yet. Mobility may be impacted, but it doesn’t appear as if any muscles or bones were majorly injured.”

“So he’ll live?” Kolivan questioned, his voice barely above a whisper. Coran nodded, and Kolivan let out a shuddering breath. It was the only reaction he let himself have before he clapped a hand on Coran’s shoulder in thanks and left the room.


	2. Chapter 2

They’d taken Keith out of the healing pod twice. First, after he’d been in the pod for almost twenty-four hours, to remove the remains of his suit that the pod had expelled from his healing body. The second time was almost forty-eight hours after that, once Ulaz and the rest of the pack had arrived. Ulaz assisted Coran in the amputation of Keith’s right leg, halfway up his thigh. The Galra had confirmed what they’d all suspected; there was no way to salvage Keith’s leg. The bones were shattered in several places, knee and ankle destroyed beyond repair, and the limb would have been a health risk going forward if they’d left it attached. As it was, Antok and Pidge were working together to design a prosthetic that would hopefully be ready within two more days. 

Keith was back in the pod, still unconscious, sans right leg, clad only in a soft pair of Shiro’s boxers so that they’d be large on the boy and not interfere with the pod’s healing tech. Coran and Ulaz checked him several times a day to mark the progress of the puncture wound in his chest and the burns on his shoulder and upper arm. Luckily, it seemed that there would be no lasting damage there, just some faint scarring that would fade with time. The other cuts and bruises had finally disappeared the day before, leaving a pale face that was slowly regaining color as the hours wore on. 

The only question now was if Keith would wake on his own before the prosthetic leg was finished and attached. It was nearly done, and Pidge was confident they’d have it done ahead of schedule with Antok helping her. The machine itself was practically done, it was just the programming that Antok was assisting the Green Paladin with. When Ulaz performed the amputation, he had set in a standard port on the stump, as the Blade had dealt with lost limbs before. The leg could be connected as soon as it was done, but Ulaz wanted Keith to be conscious for the connection in order to let them know if something was wrong. 

Shiro argued that the pod would tell them if something wasn’t connected right, and that it would be easier on Keith for it to be attached to him while he was still unconscious. The two opinions had caused a slight rift in the occupants of the Castle Ship, people divided over how best to help Keith, but in the end the decision was made for them by the boy himself. 

Kolivan and Antok had been discussing battle strategies in the healing room (many had taken to spending their spare time in there in case Keith woke up) when the pod beeped and hissed, the door sliding open. Keith tumbled out straight Kolivan’s arms, a limp ragdoll for several seconds as he got his bearings. 

“K-Kolivan?” he stuttered, sagging against the large Galra. Kolivan gently lowered them to the ground so that Keith was sitting leaning against him, and Antok gently crouched next to them, tapping a button on the pod that would alert the bridge to Keith’s status. 

“I’m here, kit, I’m here,” Kolivan rumbled, dragging one hand through Keith’s matted hair in a soothing manner as the boy trembled. “How do you feel?”

“Do I have only one leg?” Keith asked faintly, ignoring Kolivan’s question. “Oh my god, I only have one leg.” He quickly raised both his arms in front of him as if checking to make sure they were still there. Then he grasped at his chest, where the shrapnel had left a faint scar on his pectoral. “I’m alive. Holy shit. I’m alive.”

“Yes, kit, you survived,” Kolivan assured him, and Antok’s tail flicked in agitation. The huge Galra wasn’t one for many words, and Keith finally acknowledged his pack mate. 

“Antok,” he breathed out, wrapping the older Blade in a tight hug. Then he turned and buried his face in Kolivan’s shoulder, as careful as possible with his stump. Kolivan embraced Keith snugly and continued his rumbling purr to calm the young man as everyone else came running into the room. 

“Keith!” Shiro exclaimed as he burst in, looking around wildly before spotting them on the floor. “Keith, how do you feel?”

“I’m...okay, I guess,” Keith mutters, not removing himself from Kolivan’s hug, just turning his head to speak to his friend. “I’m not in any pain. But, what happened? To my leg?”

“What do you remember of the mission?”

At this, Keith sat up and ground his palms into his eyes as if just waking up. 

“I remember a guard seeing us and firing. The laser hit the explosives, setting them off, and then...I was in the ship, and Kolivan was putting...a...tourniquet…” He trailed off, and Kolivan gripped him tighter as Antok’s tail wrapped loosely around Keith’s one ankle. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” Shiro repeated softly. “Oh.” 

Then everyone else arrived and it was a whirlwind of activity; Ulaz whisking Keith away to make sure everything was behaving normally, Pidge streaking to her room to grab the finally completely prosthetic, Thace providing support for Keith to hop around until they found a crutch because Keith would rather die than be carried while he was completely conscious and finally, after two and a half hours, Keith was finally allowed to go to sleep in the pack room. 

The pack room was a large room that had been cleared of furniture and decorated with thick rugs, mattresses, blankets and pillows arranged in a comfy nest that could fit all the Galra in the pack plus one small-size half-Galra. Keith was snuggled tightly in the center, his stump bandaged for the night as the rest of the pack joined him in the nest. Kolivan ended up with Keith on one side and Thace on the other, and even when everyone else had fallen asleep, Kolivan lay awake staring at the ceiling. 

Eventually his fidgeting woke Thace up. The younger Galra smacked Kolivan’s chest lightly with his hand and rolled so he was facing the leader of the Blades.

“It wasn’t your fault, you know,” he said quietly. 

“If I had been more careful--” Kolivan began to retort, but Thace shushed him. 

“I wasn’t talking about Keith,” he interrupted and Kolivan grew very still. “I know that you still blame yourself for Shana’s death. There was nothing you could have done.”

“He was my first kit,” Kolivan rasped. “I know I was off planet. I know there’s no way I could have gotten to him in time. But I still blame myself for not keeping him safe.”

“It is no one’s fault but Zarkon’s. It’s the same now. Zarkon is responsible for Keith’s injuries, not you. Never you. You could never hurt him.” 

“No,” Kolivan agreed, tugging his sleeping kit closer to him. “Never.”


End file.
